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A museum with pieces as unusual as some that you photographed... in South Dakota!! I have spent time in the Historical Musical Instrument Museum in Vienna and some of your photos rival pieces I saw there.

The harpsichords and early pianofortes that I find the most fascinating and I don't know why, are the ones with the black and white keys reversed from what we see today.

Looking at the evolution of the piano makes me glad that I live in a time where we can afford to live in homes big enough to have pianos and can afford such beautiful instruments and that we don't have to re-tune our pianos each time we want to play in a different key or every time we want to practice!

Glad everyone likes them. Having the museum located in such a rural area as South Dakota means that not as many people get to enjoy it. Hopefully I've brought some of the museum out to the world.

It really is an unbelievable place if you like musical instruments, they have much, much more than keyboard instruments on display.

They have an audio tour of the museum as you walk though, you can hear some of the instruments being played. I think the audio tour does cost some $$. Admission itself is free but you can donate if you wish.

Originally Posted By: Piano World

Wow feeble, thanks so much, great pictures!

Lots of wonderful shots. That's the best picture I've seen of a Janko keyboard, love it.

I'd love to see these in person, but I think I'll wait until summer :-)

If you don't mind, I might grab a copy of the pictures and host them on the Piano World server so they will load faster.

If you want to host the pictures so that they load faster, help yourself, or let me know the location and I can change the posts. I have higher resolution pictures if you want those as well, just let me know.

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Thank you so much for the photos! I have actually been to this museum, and it is truly amazing. It was particularly great to see so many photos of the keyboard instruments posted here--when I was there I have to admit I was distracted by the string instruments, although of course I looked at the keyboard instruments as well. For anyone with any interest in strings, the collection there will blow you away. For example: a Stradivarius guitar (who knew he made them?), Stradivarius instruments of every kind, all the famous makers represented, some by instruments in their original conditions. . . .Truly staggering. Dozens of string instruments by all the great names--and some of the instruments themselves have names.

I am sure you could find out on the museum's website or by calling them. One of the aspects of the museum that I found fascinating was that many of their string instruments were unchanged since made. I had not known that most string instruments made by Stradivarius, etc., had had their necks lengthened over the years.

At least when I was there, you basically walked into the museum and wandered around among millions upon millions of dollars worth of glorious instruments. They sometimes get them out of their glass cases and play them--if you are a musician, as your post suggests you are, you might want to see if they are planning any concerts. (They have a string quartet of instruments made by one of the household name makers, unchanged since made, that they use sometimes to keep them happy.) There is probably no hurry about this--South Dakota winters are gruesome, and I cannot imagine anyone planning a concert for the dead of winter!

BTW, if you are interested in woodwinds, there is a huge collection of those, too. Something for everyone.

Of course, I am sitting in a blizzard as I write this, on the East Coast--might as well be in South Dakota today! And no, I don't work for the South Dakota tourist board, if there is one. . . .

I received a nice email today from Dr. Margaret Downie Banks, Sr. Curator of musical instruments at the NMM.

I'm enclosing it here:============================================================================I was delighted to see all the interest recently expressed in the NMMâ€™s keyboard collection, as well as the numerous photographs of some of our keyboards posted on the piano worldâ€™s website forum at http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...-%20Vermil.html .

Would you please inform your forum readers that there is a checklist of all of our keyboard instruments (with the exception of our reed organs and our electric organs) available on our extensive website at http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/KEYBOARD.HTM .